Mustapha Heron, Tyrn Flowers and Raheem Solomon all starred on the basketball court for the former Sacred Heart High School.
Now the trio has something else in common. All have scored at least 1,000 points in their collegiate careers, pretty remarkable given they graduated the Waterbury high school within two years of each other (Heron and Flowers graduated in 2016, Solomon in 2018). Solomon became the last of the trio to hit the 1,000-point mark on Saturday in a 78-65 Sacred Heart University home victory over Central Connecticut State University. He hit the milestone with 8:14 left in the second half on a jumper. The basket gave Solomon exactly 1,000 points for his career.
Heron was the first to reach 1,000 points in college. He did so while playing for Auburn University. Heron later transferred to St. John’s University and finished his collegiate career with 1,752 points. He averaged 15.8 points per game over 64 contests at Auburn, then had an average of 14.3 in 52 games at St. John’s.
Flowers scored the 1,000th point of his career while playing for Long Island University after starting his career at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Flowers wound up with 1,919 points, the majority of which (1,770) came at LIU. He averaged 15.8 points per game in 112 contests for the Sharks.
Solomon began his career at Niagara University before transferring to SHU. He played his first three seasons for the Purple Eagles, where he tallied 712 points in 82 games (8.7 average). This season is Solomon’s first with the Pioneers, and he is averaging a career-best 11.1 points per game over 26 contests. He has another season of eligibility if he so chooses because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Note: And as was pointed out by Freddie Feliciano on Facebook, Heron, Flowers and Solomon were all teammates at Sacred Heart High. Pretty amazing what they went on to do at the next level.
Photo credits: St. John’s University (Heron); Long Island University (Flowers); and Sacred Heart University (Solomon).
